Actors take stance against play they are performing
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The Palestinian-Israeli conflict again reared its head at the premiere of The Fever Chart at the American University in Cairo (AUC), when four of the actors took the stage to denounce it to the packed house.
After performing the play on opening night when playwright Naomi Wallace was present, actors Waleed Hammad, Ahmad Omar, Amira Gabr, and Amina Khalil took the stage wearing Palestinian scarves and t-shirts with the message "Palestine will remain Arab" to explain that although they were acting in the three-part play, they did not agree with its take on the issue.
"The play deals with characters as humans only. A flaw of logic is created when you de- contextualize human relations. The domestic policy, history of relations, and allies are all factors that need to be taken into account concerning the countries being represented," said Amira Gabr, a political science and theatre senior.
The play consists of three visions of the Middle East, broken up into three separate acts: “A State of Innocence,” “The Retreating World,” and “Between This Breath and You.” It ran from March 13 to 19.
"The play deals with a sensitive issue, especially during the conflict we live now in the Middle East. From the Arab point of view, it is not pro- Palestinian. You cannot equate the victim with the aggressor. That is why we wanted to voice our opinion as individuals, regardless of our role as actors in the play," added Gabr.
Reaction ran the gamut from those who also thought the play misrepresented the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to those who agreed with the play’s emphasis on shared humanity.
“It focused a different light on the political situation,” said Tamer Guirgis, theatre senior, “It showed the humane aspect but it didn’t show the [leaders] of both sides.”
Mohamed Fakhry, political science alumni, said that he does not think that it normalized the relation between Palestine and Israel but rather made a big deal about the human correlation within the conflict, showing the mother-to-mother relationship not the Palestine-to-Israel.
Fakhry disagreed with what the actors did on opening night, saying that it should be up to the audience to decide what they feel about the play.
The students got permission to make their statement. "Naomi told us to speak from the heart. We spoke decently and did not want to offend anyone. Frank Bradley, the director, also agreed that we could talk,” explained Amina Khalil, a theatre junior.
Bradley confirmed that he did give the actors approval to make a statement on stage but said he had no idea what they would say, adding that, “We don’t censor self-expression.”
However, Stancil Campbell, chair of the PVA department, who was present at opening night and based his opinion on the over-all incident, said, “there was no one to give approval to do a thing like that…I don’t think they were looking for approval.”
Though the actors had initially disagreed with some of the ideas presented in the play, they agreed to perform it in order to maintain a sense of professionalism.
"We read the text once and understood it. However, during rehearsals when the whole play was coming together, it deviated from what we had originally understood," said Waleed Hammad, an economics junior minoring in theatre.
"As actors we have to be professional. We did not want to cancel the whole play so we decided to get our opinion across as individuals after we finished to clear our names," said Gabr.
“Actors perform roles that they don’t agree with all the time,” said Bradley.
To avoid creating more tension, the performers agreed that that the stand they took was only for the opening night and that they would continue performing it regularly until closing night.
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